Marketing & Outreach 2018 Program Review

0. Executive Summary

The Cañada College Marketing & Outreach Department is a customer service-oriented department, dedicated to developing effective and strategic communications, public relations, outreach and community relations programs for the College. The goals of Marketing & Outreach are to increase public awareness and support of College’s programs, services, and activities, as well as work with college programs and departments to support enrollment efforts.

Over the past two years, the team has built tremendous momentum in promoting the College, externally, cultivating new community partnerships as well as working with faculty and staff on the best practices to market their respective programs. The demand was so high that additional staff was added, a Web Programmer Analyst, to launch the College’s first-ever mobile-friendly website, and online catalog, as well as properly fulfill the volume of web-related requests within a timely manner.

The Outreach team continues to increase recruitment efforts with the goal to strategize and synergize additional reach in the communities that Cañada College serves. In fact, the team has doubled its community presence over the past two years, attending more than 100 community events annually and launching the College’s Annual Jacket & Toy Drive which benefits families in the direct communities that we serve. The team believes it will continue to grow its Outreach efforts with an expanded amount of resources, including funds to increase Campus Ambassador hours to follow up with students who request information about the College as well as prospective students who have applied but not enrolled at the College. Additional funding could aid in transportation to bring students to registration events as well as provide additional print marketing material for community distribution.

Some challenges that Marketing & Outreach face is campus communication in understanding the College brand standard/guidelines for marketing and promotional material, which the team created to provide straightforward communication and brand standard guidelines for consistent messaging and public awareness of the College. With the proper tools in place, the next steps include for the team to continue communicating the standards and resources to campus. Another challenge, that was addressed in the previous cycle (and now needed more than ever) is that the team of four full-time professionals and 10 Campus Ambassadors are split between four separate offices located on opposite sides of campus. The department requests a space for the team to be placed together, creating a hub for creativity, idea sharing and optimal productivity.

Program Context

1. Mission

The Marketing & Outreach Department supports the College mission by working with faculty, staff, and students to develop and implement impactful, cost-effective marketing, communication and recruitment strategies to enhance public awareness of the educational and enrichment opportunities at the College. The department also collaborates with other college departments to support enrollment efforts. This is accomplished through the creative use of web, social media, internal and external college publications,

community relations and partnerships, strategic recruitment efforts, media relations, paid advertising, special projects and events.

2. Program Description

Visual Communications: The creation and preservation of the College brand resides under Marketing. General marketing material (print or electronic) is created and/or approved by Marketing. This includes (but not limited to): commercials, print and social media advertising, brochures, posters, flyers, logos and business cards. Also, working in collaboration with the Office of Instruction, the Marketing & Outreach team produces the College course catalog and class schedules. Accuracy and integrity of information for academic year material is maintained regularly with timely updates to the catalog amendment webpage. Marketing: The Marketing & Outreach Department creates the overall Marketing & Outreach Plan that is developed, executed, and assessed by the Marketing & Outreach Department under the direction of the Office of the President. The plan includes (but is not limited to): website, print and electronic marketing materials, media relations, special event marketing, social media, media buying, community relations and outreach.

Internal/External Communications: The Marketing & Outreach Department maintains Cañada’s primary social media handles: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and the College blog. These are integral communication channels to current and prospective students, faculty, staff, alumni and the general public. The Marketing & Outreach office provides support to other departments in developing secondary social media accounts that are program specific. Additionally, Marketing & Outreach works with departments around campus to distribute all employee messages as well as electronic communications to students through GWAMAIL. This includes developing the message and targeting the audience. Marketing & Outreach also produces and distributes the College’s employee bi-weekly newsletter, the “Olive Hill Press,” “What’s Happening at Cañada?” weekly, all-campus event blast as well as the monthly report on the College to the Board of Trustees. In addition, campus communications related to emergency or urgent notifications are facilitated by the department.

Public/Media Relations: Media relations is coordinated through the Director of Community Relations & Marketing, in association with College & District Administration. This includes preparation and distribution of news releases/statements, coordination of on-campus media events and responding to media inquiries.

Web: The Marketing & Outreach Department maintains the college website, an essential communications tool to share timely information for current and prospective students, faculty and staff. It also involves updating changing technologies on the website, making improvements in search engine optimization, and ensuring that our web content continues to be accessibility compliant to users with disabilities. This also includes the online schedules and course catalogs and liaising with District ITS on web projects.

College Recruiting: Marketing & Outreach provides opportunities to connect and collaborate with high school students and members of our greater community. Through Outreach, the College engages high school students, parents and community organizations to support services such as: Promise Scholars Program, Priority Enrollment Program (PEP), Cañada College and Community College Overview Presentations, EOPS, FAFSA, Dream Act and Application workshops, CTE Fall event, Campus Tours and Connect to College Night. Additionally, Outreach maintains strong communication and visibility with local high schools by doing weekly visits to assist students and maintain strong relationships with Cañada’s feeder high schools.

Community Relations: As the face of the College, Marketing & Outreach holds a presence at several community festivals, meetings and events throughout the year. This includes coordinating community events within the “Cañada in Your Community” community relations initiative. The team works diligently to discover and cultivate new partnerships with educational institutions, local corporate and non-profit organizations. These efforts have generated new opportunities for Cañada College to not only hold a stronger presence in the community, but connect with potential students and guide them to Cañada.

Special Events: The Marketing & Outreach Department (often in collaboration with other departments) plans, organizes and executes campus-wide events such as groundbreaking and ribbon cutting ceremonies, speaker series, PEP, CTE Success Event, Connect to College and Commencement. The department also serves as a point of contact to community members/organizations that hold events on our college campus.

3. Community & Labor Needs

Enrollment has decreased in the past few years. One (of a few different reasons) that can be linked to the decrease is the current strength in our economy. It is a topic that is being discussed campus wide and the Marketing & Outreach team looks forward to being a part of the conversation in identifying strategies, tools and goals to create an inclusive approach to enrollment management.

In addition, as the state of media continues to evolve at rapid speed, the need for print marketing is still important but the trend of electronic marketing is growing with no sign of slowing down. This is especially important as the bulk of our target market utilizes electronic media every day to receive timely information through web, social media, videos, news blogs, etc. With that, it is an ongoing need for the Marketing & Outreach Department to remain current with the latest communications

trends and implement promotional tactics to remain competitive, with the main selling tool as our website. To do this, the team will seek opportunities through courses, webinars and conferences to learn about technology that will make the Cañada’s marketing competitive with the other community and technical colleges.

The need for the College to increase community relations efforts is crucial and tremendous headway has been made. However, the efforts to continue cultivating new relationships will broaden our reach for potential students and gain additional exposure in our community. Participation and collaboration with the campus community in joining community relations and recruitment efforts will also greatly support the Marketing & Outreach team.

Looking Back

4. Major Accomplishments

Marketing:

2014-2015 were major “re-building years” for the Marketing & Outreach Department with a newly hired Director, Visual Communications Coordinator and College Recruiter. After conducting a marketing and communications audit, it was apparent that the College lacked and established look and brand visibility. Promotional material and messaging were mismatched, outdated and incohesive. The department determined that a serious foundation was needed, not only in brand recognition and consistency, but a process in which employees can request support to create attractive and engaging college-branded promotional material. From there, in 2016 the department:

• Updated (first time in nearly a decade) the College Brand & Style Guide to now include all communication and promotional resources offered by the Marketing Department.

• With this, the College Brand & Style Guide received a Third Place PRO Award, in the Before/After Category, by the California Community College Public Relations Organization.

• Updated the Marketing website to offer the campus community with several resources, including information on print, web and photography resources and policies and quick access to the college logo, map, letterhead and pre-created design templates for posters, fliers and presentations.

• Bulked up the College’s video content and created several student success videos and a commercial (in English and Spanish) that reached San Mateo County residents both online and on broadcast TV.

• With this, the commercial received a First Place PRO Award, in the TV Ad/PSA Category, by the California Community College Public Relations Organization.

• A virtual tour video was also created to be displayed on the Cañada homepage and is shown on our website, at recruitment events and during new student orientation. The virtual tour video currently has more than 5,500 views on YouTube.

• Our Visual Communications Coordinator was recognized as Classified Staff Employee of the Year for 2015-2016.

• Created and implemented of the College’s first-ever marketing request form in Fall of 2016. From the first year the request form was launched, 129 requests were submitted. From Fall 2017 to February 20, 2018, 133 requests have been submitted.

• Assisted in the creation and editing of the online digital booklet (and print document) for the Cañada College Educational Master Plan.

• Further refined and implemented the brand and design look for the College. This includes: brochures, course catalogs, class schedules, direct mailers, print advertising, bus ads and other promotional material.

• With this, the Catalog and Direct Mailer received Second Place and the Schedule received Third Place PRO Award by the California Community College Public Relations Organization.

In 2017, the team ramped up its web presence with the plan, creation and launch of the College’s first-ever mobile-friendly website. The site continues to transition with the goal of making all pages to canadacollege.edu mobile friendly by Fall 2018.The number of users and page views on our College website has increased dramatically over the past few years, with a 27 percent increase since the mobile web launch, and continues to grow.

Another important first was the launch of the online college catalog and class schedule which provides students, staff and faculty several advantages. The new Cañada College catalog is now:

• Searchable and regularly updated for new courses, requirements, etc. • Responsive and mobile phone accessible • Downloadable in a PDF format • Printable by section or entirely

Other Marketing initiatives include:

• Partnered with Skyline College and iHeart Media to launch a first-ever digital campaign promoting Spring 2018 enrollment and the Promise Program. The campaign utilized well known on-air talent, high frequency on-air and online messaging, targeted digital assets, engaging social and incentives only Skyline College and Cañada College could offer by partnering with iHeart Media. The campaign resulted in 2.3+ million impressions, garnering nearly 20 times financial value than the colleges invested.

• Social media: The College Facebook & Instagram accounts have increased its followers by

more than 50 percent since the last program review cycle.

• Created marketing material to be circulated to current and potential students throughout the community:

o Promotional brochures on the College, specific programs and special events o Direct mailers that encourage registration to 65,000 residents in Redwood City, North Fair Oaks, Menlo Park and East Palo Alto. o Class schedules displayed both on and off campus. Off campus locations include more than 160 strategic locations throughout Redwood City and San Mateo County:

• Libraries • Community Centers • Nonprofits • City Halls • High Schools • YMCA • Boys & Girls Club • Post Offices • School Districts • Menlo Park Site • Coffee Shops (Starbucks)

• Planned, coordinated and executed a number of campus-wide events, including:

Kinesiology & Wellness Groundbreaking Ceremony, Commencement, Connect to College and a Conversation with Esai Morales.

• Drove on and off campus marketing, communications and community relations efforts around the College’s 50th anniversary. This includes:

o Creating materials such as: a suite of logos, banners, light-post signs, presentation templates, event flyers and initial messaging to campus community.

o Partnered with the College Bookstore to create and sell 50th anniversary merchandise

o Establish planning committees around the celebration, which includes campus events and partnerships

o Launched a website themed around the College’s 50th anniversary, which included a number of “interactive” components of the site that allows students, staff, faculty, alumni, friends and community members of the College to share their memories and well wishes.

Outreach & Community Relations: Launched Cañada in Your Community, a campus-wide community relations effort to gather students and employees together and partner with local organizations to perform service events that support San Mateo County residents. These activities not only serve as wonderful team building events for the College but also demonstrates to residents that the College is invested in the community that it serves. With this, the College has been involved in a number of service events such as canned food sorts with Second Harvest Food Bank and beach cleanups with the City of Redwood City. Two ongoing, large-scale community collaborations that were recently developed include:

o Jacket & Toy Drive: Since 2015, the College has hosted an annual Jacket & Toy Drive, benefiting families in the immediate communities that we serve, including: Redwood City, North Fair Oaks, Menlo Park, East Palo Alto and the Coast. During this drive, Cañada coordinates a “giving event” where students and employees personally distribute jackets and toys to children and the families have a chance to connect with the college and learn about educational opportunities available to them at Cañada. Every year the volume of donations increases with the 2017 donations doubling the collection from the first year.

o Reading Circle: In collaboration with the Redwood City Public Library, Cañada hosted two Reading Circle events in 2017. At each event, more than 60 community members (many who had never visited campus before) enjoyed storytelling, craft making and snacks while meeting representatives from many college departments and learning about the educational opportunities available to them at Cañada College.

Launched Cañada College Street Team - a fun and fearless group of Campus Ambassadors (in festive Cañada College apparel) who connect with prospective students at community street festivals and events.

In order to create a more intimate experience for prospective students, Campus Ambassadors have been trained to share their personal experience and continue to better familiarize students with the Cañada College campus. The number of campus tour requests have increased in the past three years, prospective students, high schools and non-profit organizations continue to request individualize tours:

• 2015: 40 campus tours • 2016: 85 campus tours • 2017: 100 campus tours

Working closely with Orientation and Assessment Team, the Priority Enrollment Program (PEP) has flourished in the past three years increasing the amount orientation dates for incoming high

school students and creating stronger collaborations with our high school counselors to implement multiple measures. The below number represents a 79 percentage matriculation rate from PEP.

Total Number of Students Registered for PEP

Students Who Registered for Fall 2017

Students Who Did Not Register for Fall 2017

299 235 64

In 2007, the Marketing & Outreach Team attended more than 100 events, promoting Cañada College and connecting with more than 10,000 members of greater San Mateo County and northern Santa Clara County.

Over the past two years, the College has developed new relationships with community groups such as:

o Facebook- Farmers Market o Edgewood Drop-In Center o Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula o Familia Unidas o Escuela Popular, San Jose o Dream Club at Menlo Atherton High School o PTSA at Sequoia High School o ELLAC- Carlmont High School, Hillsdale High School and Mills High School

5. Impact of Resource Applications

Our team is small but strong. Each Marketing & Outreach team member plays an integral role in promoting the programs and services offered at the College. With the Director, Visual Communications Coordinator and College Recruiter have worked closely together over the past two years, and with the recent addition of a Web Programmer Analyst, the creative synergy has increased, along with the opportunity for the College to further communicate its mission and enhance public awareness of educational and enrichment opportunities available to the community. To keep current, the team will consistently evaluate current processes and

planning, paired with new ideas and action plans that will, undoubtedly, solidify as Marketing & Outreach continues to grow and thrive a team.

Current State of the Program

6A. State of the Program - Observation

The Marketing & Outreach Department is comprised of a talented team that supports the College mission by developing and implementing impactful, cost-effective marketing communication strategies to enhance public awareness of the College. We have many strengths, including:

• Dedicated to growing the Cañada brand and spreading the College mission • Solid communication and technical skills • Creative and collaborative spirit • Positive leaders in the College community • Exemplary networking and relationship building skills • Can-do, customer-service-oriented attitude • High-energy team environment • Open to new ideas and easily embrace change • Constant dedication to learn new technology/methodologies

In addition to our strengths, we are also met with challenges:

• Maintaining a collaborative environment with staff offices on opposite sides of campus • Lack of College awareness of the established Brand/Style • Unifying the college brand and design in materials that are created within other campus

departments without approval or consistency • Lack of campus community awareness and engagement in College’s community relations

efforts • Lack of communicating procedures, campus-wide, for approving marketing material • Lack of campus awareness of where/how to properly display print collateral • Overall workload for staff • Lack of employee support and participation in community relations activities and initiatives

6B. State of the Program - Evaluation

Changes that could be implemented to improve our program include:

• Continue to share and present style guide to the campus community • Continue to present material re-branding/redesign presentation to all divisions • Refresh key recruiting and promotional pages to the College website • Identify a more efficient process of tracking and follow up of potential students through a

CRM system • Continue to share (with administration, faculty, staff and students) the value of supporting,

and joining college-wide recruitment efforts to raise awareness and garner support of enrollment efforts

• Hire additional staff to assist in content-related work • Prioritize projects when work overload occurs • Hire student assistants for growing workloads

7A. SAO Assessment Plan

Each area team member has identified SAOs to work toward during this Program Review Cycle. The department will review progress on the area SAO on a bi-annual basis throughout this cycle.

SAO’s for Web:

Web SAO #1 Migrate web content to a mobile responsive design, further integrating useful web technologies and providing a more streamlined experience for its users.

Web SAO #2 Tailor the Cañada College website to ensure highest possible compliance with ADA Accessibility Guidelines so disabled users can easily navigate the website.

Web SAO #3 Be attentive to developing and managing functional and organized web code, making the creation of new content (and management of that content) through OmniUpdate faster and easier for employees.

SAO’s for Visual Communications:

Visual Communications SAO #1 Design an Annual Report to demonstrate Cañada’s academic and student success to its community stakeholders.

Visual Communications’ SAO #2 Work with College divisions/departments to create attractive, on brand and engaging promotional material to recruit prospective students, generate community awareness and aid in enrollment of their respective programs.

SAO’s & SLO’s for Outreach/Recruitment:

Outreach SAO #1 Identify and recommend a program that would easily and effectively maintain constant communication with prospective students through the recruitment and matriculation process.

Outreach SLO #1 Service: Strengthen student ambassador’s knowledge of college resources and programs through interactive monthly trainings. The trainings will better prepare ambassadors to connect with other prospective students while giving the resources they need to be successful at Cañada College.

Outreach SLO #2 Community: Train student ambassadors to effectively present and speak about campus resources and programs while working collaboratively with ambassadors from CSM and Skyline to share district wide information.

Outreach SLO #3 Career and Personal Growth: Empower student ambassadors by providing training and other development opportunities for professional and personal growth.

SAO’s for Community Relations:

Community Relations SAO #1 Encourage staff and faculty to participate in college organized community relations events through Cañada in Your Community. Event participation will help community members and prospective students get better acquainted with programs and services available at Cañada.

Community Relations SAO #2 Work with College President to create a President's Advisory Group to gather input from community leaders on how Cañada can be the best and most effective partner to accommodate the needs of the community that we serve.

7B. SAO Assessment Results and Impact

The SAOs and findings from previous cycle included:

Marketing SAO #1: Work with faculty, staff and students to develop and implement impactful, cost-effective marketing communication strategies to enhance public awareness of the College.

• Worked with more than 30 college departments and programs to create new (or update existing) promotional material with a cohesive look and feel with the college brand.

• Updated (first time in nearly a decade) the College Brand & Style Guide to now include all communication and promotional resources offered by the Marketing Department.

• Updated the Marketing website to offer the campus community with several resources, including information on print, web and photography resources and policies and quick access to the college logo, map, letterhead and pre-created design templates for posters, fliers and presentations.

Marketing SAO #2: Increase users and page views in the College website by 5 percent.

Recognizing that Cañada could be confusing to spell when heard and not seen, the team created easy-to-use (and remember) vanity URLS to draw students to website (i.e.-icanbecome.org or canadapromise.com vs canadacollege.edu). In addition, the team heavily promoted the website through a number of marketing measures:

• Bus ads • Radio ads • TV Commercials • Direct mailers • Social media posts • Catalog and schedules • Electronic signatures • Business cards

Using Google Analytics, the team measured web traffic on the website and as a result, web traffic has increased 27 percent since the previous cycle.

Outreach SAO #1: Increase student enrollment at Sequoia Unified High School District (SUHSD) by 5 percent.

In the previous program review cycle, Outreach has recently joined the Marketing Department. Since the previous cycle, Outreach created specific strategies for holding a stronger presence at high schools (ex: Carlmont and Redwood) that have lower enrollment from previous years. With this, Outreach aimed to increase its SUHSD presence and tracked:

o Number of students who enrolled from our feeder high schools through PEP orientations

o Number of campus tours given o Number of community events the College attended o Number of application workshops to parents and students

*metrics can be found above in Item 4 (Major Accomplishments)

High School

2014-15 Enrolled

2016-2017 Enrolled

Carlmont 26 34

Menlo-Atherton 37 20 Redwood 11 19 Sequoia 73 60 Woodside 51 70 Total 198 203

As a result, overall college enrollment has decreased but enrollment from SUHSD has remained flat since the last Program Review Cycle. Outreach SAO #2: Create a larger presence in the greater Redwood City community.

• Since the previous cycle, Outreach has built connections and doubled its community presence by sharing information about the College at more than 100 community events/festivals per year.

• In an effort to expand its community relations efforts and find inventive ways to connect with prospective students, Outreach launched its Cañada College Street Team! Proudly canvasing the streets of Redwood City, in festive Cañada College apparel, the Street Team (a group Campus Ambassadors) connected with prospective students at community street festivals and events to talk about the programs and services offered at the College.

These efforts resulted in promoting Cañada College and connecting with more than 10,000 members of greater San Mateo County and northern Santa Clara County.

Looking Ahead

8. Program Improvement Initiatives

Action Plan Timeline Responsible Party

Resources Required

Work with the College President to create a President’s Advisory Group

Spring 2018

Megan Rodriguez Antone

No additional resources required at this time

Create Student Ambassadors Handbook and timeline work workshops

Summer 2018

Mayra Arellano Resources needed for printing

Create High School Engagement Plan

Spring 2018

Mayra Arellano No additional resources required at this time

Update general College marketing material; translate in Español to target our growing Hispanic population; Revise Web Español sections

Ongoing Megan Rodriguez Antone, Jose Garcia and Michael Ryan

Additional resources may be required for printing

Further showcase student success stories

Ongoing Megan Rodriguez Antone, Jose Garcia, Michael Ryan and Mayra Arellano

No additional resources required at this time

Continue and complete Cañada College’s 50th anniversary campaign

January 2019

Megan Rodriguez Antone, Jose Garcia, MIchael Ryan and Mayra Arellano

Additional resources may be needed

Complete responsive/mobile friendly website

Fall 2018 Michael Ryan No additional resources required at this time

Insure Web Accessibility is current Ongoing Michael Ryan No additional resources required at this time

Create Annual Report

Fall 2018 Megan Rodriguez Antone, Jose Garcia, Michael Ryan and Mayra Arellano

Budget for print, additional content writers and design support may be required

Continue to update the on and off campus community on capital improvement projects at the College

Ongoing Megan Rodriguez Antone, Jose Garcia, Michael Ryan and Mayra Arellano

Funding for special events surrounding groundbreaking and ribbon cutting ceremonies

Update virtual tour video to reflect updates to campus

2018 Megan Rodriguez Antone

Funds to hire Kingston Media to update video

Create virtual tour video in Español

2018 Megan Rodriguez Antone

$4,000 to hire Kingston Media to update video. Additional funds may be required to hire Spanish-speaking talent

Seek opportunities through courses, webinars and conferences to learn about marketing/outreach strategies and technologies that will make the Cañada’s marketing competitive with the other community and technical colleges.

Ongoing Megan Rodriguez Antone, Jose Garcia, Michael Ryan and Mayra Arellano

Additional funding will be required